Tag: geneology

Digging Up Roots

While surfing Ancestry and other geneological sites to find documents like this, I am taken back to the days when my grandmother and I would pound the pavement for a chance to see the real documents.

While these sites do offer links and documents I don’t get the excitement that I did back in those days when I actually found the documents that linked another ancestor. You also have to be careful because if the links you find online are not substantiated by an actual document it is easy to connect a wrong link.

I know by the time I finish this paragraph you are going to think I am really wierd. My grandmother and my aunt and I would make long trips to graveyards in distant cities just for the opportunity to find that long lost connection, that one grave that would solve another link in the puzzle of life.

I cannot even tell you the hours we spent but it was like a junkie on crack! We could not wait until the next adventure. We made a lot of trips to the courthouses across the state and the North Carolina Archieves just to get a copy of a will, death certificate or marriage register. While yes you can do a lot of that online now it has taken the excitement out of genealogy and created more uncertainty about the information you are getting.

If you have never done your family tree

This is an adventure your whole family can get involved in. Don’t know how to start? Start with yourself at the base of the tree and work upwards and locate as much information as you can about each family member, then their children, grandchildren….you get the picture.

While we are spending so much time at home it is a great way to make your time at home count.

Happy rooting!

Tree Limbs and Limbs of Society

In the pictures above you see one of limbs and one of roots. What do they say to you? I know you are asking what does that have to do with society? A lot!

The roots are like our own. They start out spindly but become a vast network into the soil to support what will become a massive trunk and limbs. Like this vast network we have our own supportive system that we may or may not even recognize. This country started with a small root system, just a small band of indians, they began to develop into a vast nation of people and different tribes. Then came the English who migrated to this country along with the scottish and others seeking a new life. They too settled here and developed their own colonies starting another root system. Already these are two different groups with two different root systems and lifestyles. More immigrants came to develop their own root systems and those systems became strong truncks. They were still fairly separate at this point but already at odds with the other systems (races). They didn’t understand each other’s lifestyle and language much like some trees can’t grow together because one of them will wilt and die.

If you look at the limbs though, they have a purpose. These limbs help to balance the tree and provide seed for new trees. Now look at trees that have no limbs, they are dying or already dead. In society, we have lots of trees (origins of people) with lots of limbs (groups within those origins). All of these limbs are important to balance the tree and all of the trees are important to develop the forest (our country). While the original owners and keepers of this land were the Native Americans, all races have added value to this country. It’s time we learn to lean on each other and strengthen this tree! No tree deserves to die!